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Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Plot
The IMF is shut down when it's implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization's name.

Release Year: 2011

Rating: 7.7/10 (71,041 voted)

Critic's Score: 73/100

Director:
Brad Bird

Stars: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg

Storyline In the 4th installment of the Mission Impossible series, Ethan Hunt and his team are racing against time to track down a dangerous terrorist named Hendricks, who has gained access to Russian nuclear launch codes and is planning a strike on the United States. An attempt by the team to stop him at the Kremlin ends in a disaster, with an explosion causing severe destruction to the Kremlin and the IMF being implicated in the bombing, forcing the President to invoke Ghost Protocol, under which the IMF is disavowed, and will be offered no help or backup in any form. Undaunted, Ethan and his team chase Hendricks to Dubai, and from there to Mumbai, but several spectacular action sequences later, they might still be too late to stop a disaster.

Trivia:
This is the first film to use the 100th Anniversary Paramount logo. Each movie in the MI series has used a different Paramount logo.

Goofs:
Revealing mistakes:
The real hotel inside the Burj Khalifa is the Armani Hotel, whose entrance is much, much smaller and not as impressive as in the movie, which is actually the commercial area concourse.

If you can't enjoy this ride then entertaining you is a mission: impossible.

Rating: 9/10

"Mission Accomplished"...

Mission: Impossible  Ghost Protocol is the forth film in the franchise
(though first not to acknowledge its place in the title) and sees Tom
Cruise reprising the leading role of the globe-trotting super spy Ethan
Hunt. Throughout the series Hunt has evolved from team player to lone
wolf and now in Ghost Protocol he must become a true leader of a team
that, for the first time, he didn't choose.

The film blasts off into overdrive from the minute the gates open and
rarely lets up, it's one hell of a ride and there's enough action and
gadgets here to please any fan of the spy film genre. The plot is
fairly straightforward; the bad guy obtains the key to the ultimate
weapon and plans to destroy the world with it. Hunt and his team,
working without the support of the IMF, must stop him at all costs. It
has enough twists and turns to keep you engaged but it never gets so
complicated that you risk getting lost while you're immersed in the
mind- blowing stunt sequences. One thing fans of the series will
probably notice this time around is that Hunt is more 'human' when it
comes to the action than he has been in most of the previous outings.
Not everything goes to plan and if he gets hit or falls down it hurts.
Sure he's still a super spy and can do things most mortal men would
never try in a million years but the added vulnerability and
consequences of those actions gone wrong lifts the film to a new level
and is one of the reasons it kept me on board all the way to the end.

If there is anything about this film that let me down a little it was
the absence of a true 'super villain' like we had in MI3. Yes there's a
villain and yes he's dangerous but there is something missing. I guess
I could put it this way  there is no, Joker to Hunt's Batman. In MI3
things get very personal between Hunt and Owen Davian (Philip Seymour
Hoffman) and that jacked up the menace and intensity of the conflict to
a level you'd expect to see in the ultimate villain but in M:I-GP that
level of personal rivalry between protagonist and antagonist was a bit
lacking. It's not that Michael Nyqvist (The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo) didn't deliver a good performance in the few scenes where he
interacts with Cruise, it's just that there are so few of these moments
that he is, in many ways, almost like another one of his own henchmen
and I mistook him for other characters on a few occasions.

Personally I felt a greater presence and sense of danger from the
female assassin, Sabine Moreau (Lea Seydoux  Robin Hood), a beautiful
yet malicious woman with a cold heartless gaze, completely devoid of
compassion. In my opinion she'd have made a much better leading
villain, especially as her actions do personally effect one of the
team, but despite this little hiccup there is certainly more than
enough obstacles to keep Hunt and his team busy and the audience well
and truly entertained so this is really just nit-picking on my part.

After the relative disappointment of the second Mission: Impossible
film, first time feature director J.J. Abrams (of TV's ALIAS and Lost
fame) injected some much needed heart and soul into the third
installment, expertly balancing a romantic subplot with the high-octane
action sequences all fans demand of such a film. Although Abrams was
not going to direct the fourth film it was reassuring to see that he
was still involved as a producer so I had relatively high hopes that
Ghost Protocol would live up to MI3 and I wasn't disappointed.

Like MI3 before it Ghost Protocol's director's chair is filled with
another first timer of sorts and like the previous chapter that
'gamble' has paid off. Although Brad Bird is not a first time feature
helmer this is his first foray into the world of live action so he
might not seem to be the most obvious choice but there was never any
doubt from either Abrams or Cruise about his talent and potential to
deliver a great film. Bird's impressive previous credits include The
Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille (the last two having won
Academy Awards for best Animated Feature Film). Like Abrams, Bird has
also had great success on the small screen as an executive consultant
on the Simpsons and I've been a fan of his work since chancing upon
Family Dog (from Spielberg's 'Amazing Stories' series) in the early
90's.

Simon Pegg (Paul) reprises his role as Benji Dunn from MI3, the
computer whiz behind all the action. Dunn has now graduated from a
'behind the desk cameo' to a fully qualified field officer and as a
result gets a much beefier role in this mission becoming one of Hunt's
rogue team. Pegg's natural comedic timing and likable charm adds a
much-needed element of lightheartedness to the franchise that could
have easily backfired had this role been miscast.

Rounding out the new team are IMF agents Jane Carter (Paula Patton 
Deja Vu) and William Brandt (Jeremy Renner The Hurt Locker), and both
actors deliver solid performances. Carter is as sexy as she is deadly
and Patton slips between these two persona's with ease while Brandt
hides a secret past allowing Renner to show a vulnerability we're not
used to seeing in the roles he normally plays.

Mission: Impossible  Ghost Protocol delivers exactly the type of
entertainment action fans crave and as a result it is perfect popcorn
movie. If you don't enjoy this ride then entertaining you is a mission:
impossible.